The financial cost of the recent unseasonal snow storms will be heavy for some central North Island farmers.
Federated Farmers Manawatu-Rangitikei president, Gordon McKeller, says costs will be severe for some of the larger scale farming operations at the higher altitudes along the Napier-Taihape road.
Mr McKellar says some farmers were able to send in feed by helicopter or heavy tractors, at a cost of up to $40,000 a day for two days.
Despite their efforts, he says, some will have lost 20% of their lambs
Mr McKeller says the costs and losses are coming on top of two years of drought for some farmers in the Central Plateau and Hawkes Bay regions.
Dairy farming
A farmer in the eastern Bay of Plenty says the unusual October weather conditions have affected dairy and other farming operations in the region
Up to 26 millimetres of rain fell in the Whakatane area on Thursday.
Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers president Alan Law says recent cold snaps and the higher rainfall meant it was too wet to so maize on both arable farms and on dairy farms which grow the crop for cattle feed. Grass growth was about 20% lower than September, he says.
Mr Law thinks these issues will also result in less milk being supplied to Fonterra.
Tomato grower struggles
In Hawkes Bay, Heinz Wattie has had to resort to night planting to get the country's biggest tomato crop in the ground on schedule.
The company began planting two weeks later than planned, due to the wet weather, and now has to catch up.
'Not enough warning'
Some farmers say they weren't given enough warning of the unseasonal snow storms.
Federated Farmers' Hawkes Bay Meat and Fibre chairman Will Foley says he knows of one farmer who lost about 1000 lambs and another station where 200 ewes died during the storms.
Mr Foley says the unseasonal snow storms were worse than expected and he doesn't think forecasters gave enough warning about them.
Hawkes Bay Federated Farmers president Kevin Mitchell says stock losses being reported back to him are not as bad as first thought.
